AlbertaPoliBlog

Monday, 9 May 2016

The complex civil-military
operations of the early twenty-first century were a testing ground for the
implementation of the groundbreaking October 2000 United Nations Security
Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325 on women, peace and security.
The test went beyond the instrumental “increasing gender awareness” amongst
militaries and their governments. The very nature of these complex civil-military
operations have also been gendered. The use of force and enemy-centric thinking
(combat operations, raids, etc) competed with population-centric approaches
that included humanitarian and development aid, and governance support, all
undertaken with the intention to win a war through “hearts and minds” (trust of
the population) rather than violence.

The gendering of these approaches became
visible as the participating intervening nations in Afghanistan and Iraq grew
weary of slow progress in these operations
and a complicated and demanding environment. An increasing rhetoric from a
number of participating nations favoured a return to traditional,
hyper-masculinist military practices – “killing people and destroying things” over a cosmopolitan,
multi-dimensional, “feminized” approach that saw a
larger role for non-kinetic (non-lethal) measures. The question is whether or
not the implementation of gender perspectives within military institutions will
suffer a setback as a result.

Wednesday, 27 April 2016

So you want to work in
solidarity with black and Indigenous peoples. Well, here are a few things you
should know but probably haven’t considered.

First, black and Indigenous
peoples aren’t homogeneous. They do not hold monolithic perspectives on any
issue. There is, at times, deep disagreement within these communities. You
cannot and should not adjudicate between them. However, you cannot and should
not use disagreement as an excuse to avoid accountability. Like it or not,
you’re going to have to make some tough choices.

If you thought you could get
away with ducking disagreements and fetching coffee, you’re in for a big
surprise. Working in solidarity means being accountable, and you are only
accountable insofar as you do work – intellectual or physical – for which you can
be held to account.

Monday, 18 April 2016

It
has been several days since the Daniels decision came down from the
Supreme Court of Canada (SCC), and not surprisingly, it is being welcomed by an
incredible range of organizations and individuals. To be clear, I'm cautiously
favourable to some of the decision’s likely impacts, but I want to take a
moment to focus on the section that is getting the most attention among those
organizations and individuals that I am familiar with given my research.

Let
me begin with the following statement, offered by Justice Rosalie Silberman Abella
on behalf of the court, which is being repeated over and over again by nascent “métis”
organizations a little bit all over: “'Metis’ can refer to the historic Metis
community in Manitoba’s Red River Settlements or it can be used as a general
term for anyone with mixed European and Aboriginal heritage,” Abella wrote.
“There is no consensus on who is considered Metis or a non-status Indian, nor
need there be. Culture and ethnic labels do not lend themselves to neat
boundaries.”

“Now I am Metis: How White People Become
Indigenous,” Native Studies Speakers' Series, University of Saskatchewan, March 12, 2015.

Department of Political Science, University of Alberta

What do political scientists do? Politics is about power, and political science understands the processes, ideas, and institutions through which power is structured, as well as power's effects. Thus, we look at subjects that range from Canadian elections and political parties to the ethics of war and post-conflict management, from the political economy of the global South to theories of justice and citizenship, and from environmental movements to gender relations. In the Department of Political Science, our research and teaching engage with the big questions and with the critical events that shape politics around the world.